A normal user's look into the world of 3D Stereo Technologies

Earlier this month I’ve written about the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative that has been started by four of the key players in the consumer electronics 3D devices market, namely Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony Corporation and X6D Limited (XPAND 3D). Their intent to collaborate on the development of a new technology standard for consumer 3D active glasses called “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” was something interesting happening on the 3D market, however these four companies weren’t enough to have it an industry wide standard. However with the announcement of more companies joining the effort so soon things are starting to look much better. Today it was officially announced that Royal Philips Electronics, Sharp Corporation, TCL Corporation and Toshiba Corporation have expressed support for the activities of the “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative”, so now only a few of the important players on the market remain to join in.

The intent of the companies supporting the initiative is to work together on the development and licensing of a Bluetooth enabled radio frequency (RF) system 3D active shutter glasses technology, including RF system protocols between consumer 3D active shutter glasses and 3D displays such as televisions, personal computers and projectors, as well as 3D theaters with XPAND active shutter glasses. The standardization will also include several types of infrared (IR) system protocols between 3D active shutter glasses and 3D displays, ranging from the protocols jointly developed by Panasonic and XPAND 3D to the proprietary protocols of Samsung and Sony to ensure backwards compatibility.

In late September 2011, the license program for the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative is targeted to commence. With this, manufacturers of 3D displays, 3D synchronization emitters, 3D active shutter glasses or Bluetooth chip devices for such products can receive a license to begin developing and manufacturing products employing the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative technology. Further, in late 2011, the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative plans to begin officially certifying products manufactured under the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative license. Upon a product’s certification, the Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative will allow the usage of a distinct logo, which will provide consumers an easy way to recognize interoperability among 3D active shutter products, such as 3D TVs and 3D glasses that each bear the logo.

So maybe as early as next year we are going to be able to use one pair of active shutter glasses with multiple 3D devices we have at home, instead of having different pairs of glasses for each device. But will this also apply to 3D monitors for computers as not everyone from that market is yet supporting this initiative, we’ll have to wait and see if this industry wide effort is going to be successful and widely accepted by everyone or not. The licensing fee for the different kind of products is $10,000 USD annually for each type of product plus $1 USD for each unit of glasses produced, as well as $1 USD for each unit of external emitter. And while this may not be such of an issue for most companies, some might still consider that the extra royalties connected with the standard are not worth it…

There is a bit of interesting information today coming from Digitimes, saying that according to AU Optronics (one of the large LCD panel manufactures) the shipments of Patterned retarder 3D TV LCD panels (passive 3D solutions) will win over the active 3D LCD panels in the second half of this year. The results for the first half are showing 1 million active 3D LCD panels shipped versus about 900K for the passive ones, but AU Optronics (AUO) believes that in the second half of the years the situation will reverse and the passive solutions will prevail. Of course AUO has direct interest for that to happen as they are currently making passive solutions and although the company is apparently ready to produce auto-stereoscopic 3d displays as well, the cost for the production is still considered too high for the mainstream market…

Another big player on the 3D HDTV market going for Patterned retarder or passive 3D HDTV LCD products is LG Electronics with the company currently having a big worldwide marketing campaign promoting on how their passive line of Cinema 3D TVs are better than active solutions. And although they may be right for some things, you should not forget that the passive solutions also have drawbacks that are not present in most active shutter glasses solutions. On the other hand the other two big LCD panel manufacturers Samsung Electronics and Chimei Innolux (CMI) are giving their support for the active 3D LCD panels.

And while the war between passive and active on the 3D HDTV market rages, on the desktop 3D LCD market still the active 3D solutions are the preferred solution by gamers willing to play in either 2D at 120Hz or in stereoscopic 3D mode with Full HD resolution for each eye. And these two things are not available with most mainstream passive solutions which are usually preferred for non-gaming applications. So which technology do you prefer, what for and why…?